1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a navigation apparatus based on facility information concerning facilities, method and a program thereof, and a recoding medium with the program recorded therein.
2. Description of Related Art
There has been popularized the navigation apparatus for vehicles, which is loaded on a vehicle as a movable body and allows for the user to search information concerning a running route to a destination by displaying the running route on a map.
This navigation apparatus has, in addition to the destination search function depending on names of facilities, telephone numbers, or addresses, the peripheral location search function allowing for the user to search a destination around a current position of the vehicle.
For instance, when a user wants to know a location of a gasoline station near from a current position of the user's vehicle with the peripheral location search function, the user selects the peripheral location search function, and specifies a category for search. After the category data is entered, the navigation apparatus displays a list for gasoline stations located in a peripheral area around a current position of the user's vehicle. When the user selects one of the gasoline stations shown on the list, the navigation apparatus set the selected gasoline station as the destination.
Then the navigation system automatically searches a recommended running route up to the destination set as described above from the vehicle's current position. Further the navigation apparatus displays, detecting a current position with a GPS receiver or the like, the route to the destination along the running route automatically searched and recommended as described above so that the user can drive on the running route.
For convenience of description, now a case is assumed, for instance, in which a user searches information on a facility in a peripheral area around a current position of the user's vehicle with the peripheral location search function as described above and drives the vehicle to the searched facility. When the user is required to find an alternative facility belonging to the same category as that of the selected facility for the selected facility is closed, the user is required to again input category data with the peripheral location search function, and selects a facility among those on the displayed list.
When the user is required to find and go to an alternative facility belonging to the same category as that of the facility selected first, it is also possible for the user to search an alternative facility by searching information concerning a name, a telephone number, an address, or other data of the facility. However, when the search as described above is to be performed, the user is required to input information such as the name, telephone number, address, or other types of data of the facility.
The navigation apparatus based on the prior art requires users to manually operate the apparatus, and there is the need to overcome this problem for further improved convenience.